Welcome to zero. I'm Akshatrati. This week rom coms, sitcoms, and penshons. How often do you think about your pension four oh one K or whatever it's called in your part of the world. You know your retirement plan. If you're lucky enough to have one, the chances are you don't think about it very much, if at all. It's a thing that just happens. A small sum is taken out of your paycheck every month, and the savings grow into a sizable pot that you can tap into sometime
in the future. The pot grows not just because of your continued contributions to it, but also because legions of pension fund managers put your money to work, often by buying shares in global companies. Add it all together and there's some fifty trillion dollars hell in pensions. That sounds great. Pensions have helped improve life in later years, But there's a catch. There always is a good chunk of that sum is invested in fossil fuel companies, helping them and their emissions grow as well.
The why not moment has arrived. A lot of sustainable pensions are making equal if not more. This is a way where you could say to someone you're worried about the climate, here's a great, big thing you could do.
Richard Curtis is not a name you might associate with pensions. He's best known as the screenwriter behind hit British comedies like Mister Bean, Love Actually, and Bridget jones Diary. Richard also founded an annual comedy TV show on the BBC called Comic Relief, which has raised more than one point five billion pounds to combat poverty and famine around the world over the past forty years. In twenty twenty, he
turned his attention to pensions. He co founded Make My Money Matter, a campaign group dedicated to stopping pension funds and banks from investing in fossil fields. I sat down with Richard to ask him about how he went from writing for the screen to making your retirement money green, what can be done to stop greenwashing in the financial sector, and whether he'll ever write a climate rom com Now.
You've written some incredibly popular films and series for Weddings and a Funeral, Love Actually, Bridge Jones, Mister Bean, Blackadder, but you're also behind one of the UK's biggest campaigns, Comic Relief.
Yeah, I've been busier than I would have liked.
So how did you go from being a screenwriter to campaigning?
It's an interesting thing because in a way, my sort of argument about the climate crisis and trying to change the world is, you know, use the situation you're in. So I watched the Live Aid concert.
It's twelve noon in London, am in Philadelphia and around the world it's time for Live Aid, sixteen hours of live music, and I d a fun and relief in Africa.
That was an example of pop stars doing everything they could. And I was working in comedy at the time, and so I thought, go to the BBC, offer them a fundraising show which is going to have five hours of comedy in it. And then that has snowboard over the years and we've done lots of other things, but basically it was using the place I was, the job I did, and then trying to raise as much money as possible through it. And then you found it make my money matter.
In twenty twenty, why did pensions become your area of interest? Well, you see I did. I mean I worked on the Live eight Concerts two thousand and five and Make Property History campaign, so I was very interested in the sort of a trade debt, the politics of fighting poverty rather than just the charity of it. And then the SDGs started.
To in able development goals from the United Nates.
That's right, and a sort of planned for the world which locks together climate, justice, development. And I kept on making films which said, we need to turn the billions into trillions. There's got to be more money going into changing the world in various different ways. And then I just started to hear some of the statistics about banks investment, but particularly pensions. The world pension part which belongs to the world, you know, yours and mine, is fifty one
trillion of invested money. And if that could be invested in.
The one trillion dollar dollars.
And if that could be invested in things which are actually aiming to help on climate, help on equality, help on justice. What an amazing there. The trillions were so I thought, Comic Relief has raised you know, one point five billion and thirty five years, and yet this campaign, My Money Matter, has helped to move one point three trillion pounds in the course of two and a half years.
Now on the website you highlight a study that says making your pension green it's twenty one times more powerful than cutting your carbon through giving up flying, going vegetarian, or switching energy providers. Why is greening your pensions so significant.
Well, because it's a great big chunk of actual money, which is your money, which is being invested. Let's say your pension's got thirty thousand pounds in it. No one would dream of giving thirty thousand pounds as it were
to charities or no normal person. But in fact or as we're lending it to businesses and enterprises which are producing renewable energy, affordable housing, affordable healthcare, you know, all the companies that are doing their best on supply chains and equality and working conditions, all these kinds of things. It says it were the biggest gun in our personal arsenal in terms of changing things.
And you've said with comic Relief that you wanted to give people a sense that what they did mattered, that they could make a difference to issues like poverty. What lessons did you take from comic Relief that you've been able to translate to make my money matter.
Well, I think comic Relief was a way of trying to communicate in a populist way when we were talking about issues. Instead of getting a news correspondent or a financial or social expert, we just got the normal comedians who are just normal human beings and don't know much to explain things and express all their passions. So we tried to do things in an entertaining and populist way and in a way make my money matter has gone
the same route. We've just made a little film. In fact, it's about the way the bank system investing fossil fuel expansion. But it stars two stars and Game of Thrones.
He will tell everyone that he now loves renewables. Oh, look at me and my pretty little windmills, and then he turns around and tells me that he loves me.
Which is it? And they're doing a bit of acting. They're not talking economics. So I think what it is is to try and make things accessible, passionate or humorous.
That particular film, which we'll link to in the show notes, has Kid Harrington and Rose Leslie in it. Are you thinking of writing a climate change rom com next?
Ah?
Do you know?
I'm kind of asking people who are still funny to do the same. We used to have a show here called The Good Life, which was about two people who slip off the grid. I think that would make a very good climate change sitcom. I mean, I do think it's everybody's responsibility to think how they can make climate change issues as entertaining as exciting. You know, Adam McKay's doing it and don't look up, So I think it's coming. It probably won't be me who writes a bit old.
Things like poverty and hunger, which you've targeted previously, are obviously bad. People understand it, and so it's easier to make them feel that they should do something about it. Pensions, on the other hand, are just this thing that are sitting in the background if you're lucky to have one. And so, what has been the biggest challenge in running this campaign versus anything you've done previously.
It's either a challenge or an opportunity, Because when you're asking someone for money in a charity appeal, they've got that money. They could spend it on suites, but you're saying, why don't you spend it on supporting a project. In this case, you're saying, here's this thing which is just sitting there, which you've always had well without giving anything away you can achieve a big result. And by the way,
it's absolutely key to this campaign. When I started looking into it, I was worried that it would be another example of morals versus money, value versus values, that if anyone was going to say, well, I'd like to green my pension and like sustainable pension, you know, you'd have to admit to them it didn't make less. But as it were, the why not moment has arrived. A lot of sustainable pensions are making equal if not more, and often more so that the excitement about the pensions is
I'm actually telling people a new thing. You're actually instead of saying, you know, vegan, that's hard, don't take plastic models. We know that this is a way where you could say to someone you're worried about the climate, here's a great, big thing you could do.
As you said, it's a big, big amount of money
that could be moved in the right direction. One way in which pensions are being moved is through the so called ESG credentials, and ESG just stands for a set of investing strategies that take into consideration environmental, social and governance criteria and they argue that if these metrics are counted properly and included in decision making to invest or to not invest in a particular company, then you could use the global financial system and bend it towards solving
the climate crisis or other social ills rather than exacerbating them. Do you think ESG advocates are right?
Well, I think you know, it's quite interesting. I went to see Mark Carney, who was the Governor of the Bank of England when we started thinking about this, and he said, being absolutely sure the extent to which companies are doing the right thing, are abiding by these ZESG rules, he said, it's going to be a long journey that, but it is definitely in the right direction. And there's been a great acceleration in terms of companies reporting on these things, and that as it were, boards of companies
saying these things are important. Our most important shareholder is, as it were, the world at large, you know, making sure that people don't dodge it, fudget, don't do token versions of it. This is all happening now quite fast. But it's definitely a good way of thinking about your business rather than only thinking about, as it were, the profits it's making without any consideration of the harm that it might be doing.
The financial industry, in a way is quite conservative when it comes to making changes because once the system is working, they don't want to break it. And EESG is somehow being forced upon them. Yes, by society, by people who want to think in the long term, and yes, there are teething problems, some very real ones. So here at Bloomberg, we've looked at ESG for a long time. We have an entire set of staff that works on these issues
all the time. One thing that we've looked at specifically is the underlying mechanism on which ESG investment decisions are made. They are tied to these ESG ratings, which are marketed as a way to say, if you are a high ESG rated company, you're doing good in the world. If you're a low EARG rated company, you're doing bad in
the world. But the reality is quite the opposite. In fact, what these ratings typically say is that the company that has a high year SG rating is making sure that the risks that climate change brings are accounted for in their profits and how they manage those profits, rather than accounting for the good they do in the world. So how do you hold pension managers who make investment decisions to account for their decisions, to actually do good rather than simply be good.
Pr Well, look, it's a very very as you're saying, it's a very very complicated issue how you evaluate these things. But the argument behind make my money matter is the public want you to do it, that it's actually an effort you have to do, and they expect you to be accountable. So as well, that's my side of the argument. I remember to talking to someone who runs a huge company and saying, what do you think about the sustainable development goals and ESG And he says, it's never going
to make it onto the top of our agenda. And then three years later, as it were, after the pandemic, with climate change accelerating and everything, I met him again and he said, well, surprise, surprise, it's there. And so I think that the point about anybody acting individually is that they can actually affect the mindset of people who are working on these things to try and make them do it well, and try and make them accountable and
try and make it real. But the other side of things, which you know, I would say to everyone who's listening to this, is you know where does the power lie. I didn't go into comedy in order to raise money or try and have this discussion with you, and yet I found myself in this position and people who are running businesses. You know, my dad worked for Unilever for thirty five years. He didn't think that was why he was there, but it turns out it could be what
you're there. I sat next the other day to somebody who said that he was handling seven trillion in investments. Now he got there because he was brilliant at maths and could wear a tie. But he's now more important than most politicians. And we're all in this boat together. It's the climate chaos that is coming at us. And what a great thing to think. I got this job for other reasons, and now I can lead it. I can actually offer this advice. I can make sure it works.
I just say to people, don't think, well, there's this bloke and he's saying what I should do. You know what he's saying is what could you do? Could you apply all your intelligence, all your skills, all your financial acumen to actually fixing things for your children's generation, rather than saying this is someone else. This has got to be a politician's job. This has got to be activist's job.
It's not. It's the job of people in business to see whether or not, as it were, they've got the kutzba to actually make these changes work, and make these changes work in a way that will go on delivering profits and money to all their investors. Because you know, I've heard a lot of business people say sustainability is the greatest investment opportunity since the Industrial Revolution. There's a
gold mine out there. Let's get there, rather than hanging on to the past and saying I'll put my money into coal mines.
The only seven trillion dollar asset manager that I know is Larry Finks. I think you've just given it work.
No, no, no, I think I might have known what he looks like. Now.
The duty of those managing pension pots is to deliver returns. That's what fiduciary duty counts for us. And they often use that excuse to justify investments in all kinds of assets so that the risk is spread so that the returns are stable, and kinds of acets to include fossil fuels. So how do you counter that argument, which continues to be put forward by many pension managers.
Well, I think the answer is to say that it is incredibly expensive and dangerous to solve the outcomes of crisis. I remember Paul Palman, who Rannuly was saying to me that to pay for all the SDGs would be cheaper than to deal with one crisis in one of them, you know. And we've seen that with COVID, with the incredible expense of not having proper pandemic prevention systems in place.
So I think that the answer is that the risks to investment of climate change are so self evidently huge and dangerous and leading to so many things that the sensible execution of fiduciary duty is to be sustainable and to diversify and to encour marurage businesses which are actually helping the climate and making profits for the people who invest in.
It's all good to call on people to put their money into green pensions, but how do you make sure those pensions are actually green? That's coming up. After the break in May, a think tank called Carbon Tracker Initiative put out a report that said one hundred and sixty funds that had themselves either a label of ESG Sustainable Climate carbon transition had about four point six billion dollars of investments in some of the world's largest fossil fuel companies.
So when do you think that will stop and that these funds will actually have cleaned up their act.
Well, this is an exciting and really current question, isn't it. You know, everyone is there's much more awareness of the immense profits of these companies and also much more awareness of the difference between you know, when I started thinking about this, the first questions I was aggressively asked is are you a divestment campaign? Do you not want anyone to invest in fossil fields at all? And we are
not a divestment campaign. And it seems just like to a normal person like me, obvious that those enormous companies will be part of the transition to renewables and will probably, as it were, be the people who most executed so in the car industry, as it were, it needed Tesla to popularize electric cars for then all the huge companies to say, well, we're going to make our money from
this as well. So I think it's a very very live issue, and the question is how fast and is it where people like you and me and the people who care about these things, accelerate sense that investment in new fossil fuel expansion is a completely morally and practically bad thing and part of a very old fashioned and uncourageous way of thinking about things. And our next target
don't like to stay target. The people we want to convince next are the banks, you know, and again, the money that you've got in your bank could easily be funding fossil fuel expansion, and they've got to say no, we're not going to do it. And then you know, the financial reality for those companies will change and alter, and with any luck, they will do it brilliantly and be part of the solution instead of a massive part of the problem.
One way to think about pensions is that it's a radical act. It's an act of believing that the money that you save now, decades later, right will come to you in a world that would be worth living in, that you would be able to take pleasure or sustain yourself with that income, by.
The way, and that's what because when I first heard the word pensions, and you know, Dave and Journey i work with, said that's where we could focus. I remember thinking, I want to prefer high street banks because people are more aware of that. But there is an incredible sort of logical beauty to it, isn't it That you're trying to make sure that you have a decent future, and if your future happens in a world of climate chaos and mass migration, everything is not going to be great.
You're actually asking pensions to do two things at the moment. One give you the money, and two give you the money in a world that is functioning better and is less hot. What we're particularly trying to say, as it were, is to young people, when you go for that first pension, make sure that it's sustainable one at the moment of first interaction, be on the right side of the argument.
But there is a risk that if the ESG strategies, these marketing strategies, at least so far, don't actually end up doing what you want them to do, which is help tackle the climate crisis not exacerbated, that people would feel cynical about having done any of this and having even believed in your campaign and thought that the world will be better. But look what's happened, Nothing's changed. How are you making sure that that is not a place where we end up in?
Well, we're being you know, we've got a lot of pension funds and businesses to sign up to a net zero promise, and what we aren't doing is just saying great. What we're saying is we're going to do a report at the end of this year which says how you are doing, whether or not you've fulfilled that. So you know, one of the things is to do our very best to make sure that people keep their promises.
Well, you've kept on campaigning for causes for a long time now, so clearly at some level you think it's working, yeah, and it will continue to work. What gives you that kind of optimism?
Wow, I mean that's a big question. Part of its experiential as it Well, you know, one of the biggest campaigns we did was the Make Poverty History campaign and the outcome of that was, you know, an increase in overseas development aid and particularly debt cancelation, which was an absolutely remarkable recalibration of the financial system. So as it were, if Live eight led to forty billion more addressing these issues,
that's a good bit of evidence for me. I mean, obviously, in the world of politics, things go backwards and forwards, and my experience of life is that every time I do anything, I think as though I'm going to the top of the staircase. And then I look back five years later and I realized I went up a step. But you only get to the top of the staircase
by going up a step at a time. You know, and I've seen, you know, on a small level, we used to relief do a lot of support of disability charities, and in many cases those charities whereas it were campaigning for changes in the law, and they achieved those changes in the law. So in my own lifetime, I've seen a lot of things that move from charity to government to huge increases of money, and you have to fight for those things that you believe in.
But the progress metrics that you've tried to pursue, which is to reduce hunger, to reduce poverty, are now all back up on the rise. Some of this is because of COVID, but some of it is because of climate change. Yeah, hunger, World hunger on average was falling until about twenty sixteen to twenty nineteen is going back up again. This is pre pandemic. Poverty obviously has been exacerbated by the pandemic, but it's not getting easily solved, given inflation, given supply chain,
given extreme weather. And so is that why now you're looking at climate as the focus area where poverty and hunger are still big problems.
I mean, I think the genius of the sustainable development goals is that they are their absolute base understanding there is that all these things are linked. I thought I could get away just focusing on poverty and development. And I remember in at Live eight with the guy in shorts from green Peace left stormed out of the room because we said it's too complicated for people to get their heads around. But just take as it were, what's
just the floods in Pakistan. You can see that climate change not only does damage, but does epic damage to the poorest people. And as far as the current reverses are concerned, you know, what do you do when things that you really are passionate about seem to get worse? Well, I would have thought the answer is try harder. I would have thought the answer is recruit different and new partners.
That's why, you know, we're talking to the people who have power over the money in this world, and the most interesting thing in the world of the SDGs and the and is a lot of the stuff that Mia Motley is saying, the Bridgetown Agenda is actually saying, is there things that we can do at the World Bank? Are the things that you can do at the IMF?
You know, just the simplest of ideas, this idea of freezing debt that went a country has some kind of climate crisis, environmental crisis that as it were, the debts are frozen till they've been able to spend that debt
with payment money on trying to revive the country. So you know, you just have to be more imaginative, bring more people on your team, change more people's minds, and then meanwhile hope that science initiative, business brilliants, all of these things, as they did in COVID, come up with solutions faster than ever now.
Pensions are not just fueling the climate crisis here as a UK issue, but many of the world's biggest asset managers and pension parts are based in the US. We talked about the total sum being fifty one trillion dollars in the US specifically, there is a backlash backlash on certain types of investments, so ESG investments are being opposed by Republicans. Are you worried that that kind of politicization off investments is going to spread and will harm the sort of work you're trying to promote.
I mean, yes, yes, I think that that is. There is an issue of sort of drawing everything up on sort of culture wars arguments. But you've got to believe that you're right. You know, the people who are objecting to this movement in the USA, as far as I know is they are saying, is it putting our funds and our future at risk? And yet an enormous people, number of people who are very well informed financially, say no,
the opposite is true. You know, you're going to end up with stranded assets, You're going to end up having to pump money into industries that no longer are powerful and effective. I'm hoping, as it were, that arguments and the truth of where the money goes and how the money expands is what will eventually win the day.
Not everyone has a choice about where the pension money goes. They don't always have the option of changing providers, don't always have the ability to influence their provider to invest in the right things. So what do people do if they care about greening their pensions, but are stuck.
That is a really good question, and the answer is, I think it's going to become easier. I love the idea of the heroic chief financial officer, you know, the climate sup the necessary heroes that we actually need, you know,
may have briefcases. So I think that the answer is that, in particularly if you're in a company scheme and that's been the wrong way, is to talk to the company and say that you want it to change, and that there are a lot of people who want it to change, and then they may well start to provide those products. And one of the things we are finding is that pension funds are creating more and more products that you
can take advantage of. And when I started talking about these issues, I went to my extremely intelligent financial advisor, and he never thought about it. You know, he hadn't. Actually there's a big educational process. But when it becomes a priority with people, you may be one of those people of whom it's impossible to change, but you may be someone who it's hard to change. And when you make that change, then it's much easier for those people who come after you.
So when you know the expert who's supposed to advise the non expert does not know what they should know. You know, you're on the right part to try and build a campaign that will be effective.
Yeah, exactly, And actually, in fact, now my financial advisor is an expert and is on some kind of body of financial advisors who are pushing for these things.
Now, for the first time, we've seen advertisers being held accountable by standards authorities here in the UK and in Europe, banning adverts that have things like carbon neutral on them if they are not able to meet the criteria to actually back those claims. Should similar types of punishments be given for green washing in the finance industry, I'm.
Sure they will be. I mean, I have found it hilarious over the past few years that almost every ad that you see for a petrol company is basically about the four wind farms they've got, you know what I mean when you hear the figures of how much they're investing in one thing and not in the other. So this is exactly the point where regulation starts to bite, you know, and their reaction is either don't do that false advertising or make the changes that mean that it
is no longer false advertising. Both of those things are good.
The campaign's philosophy is that you get pension funds and the companies they invest in to become greener through dialogue and pressure. That is, in investors speak engagement. When do you think engagement is not working and you should divest, which is just pull your money out of these companies and these funds because you've tried talking to them and they're not doing the right thing. When is it that you cross that treashold?
Well, that's very interesting, and that you know that may be partly personal taste, do you know what I mean? Someone may just say I'm not having this at all. I'm going to shift straight away. So I think that, you know, I've tended in my life to walk slightly down the middle of the road. I have quite a lot of admiration for people who are more you know, activist than I am. They make a lot of noise
and sometimes they're extremely effective. So I think the answer is that divestments should be something that those people who believe in it should do, and those people who sometimes believe you know, if you had a very pure pension fund that says we are divesting all these things invest
in US, then that's another way of making money. So I think it's you know, it's for small choice, and it's something that some people may feel they should as sooners some people may feel they should do later, and I hope they won't ever have to do.
Is there a danger that people, if they succeed at greening their pensions think, given it so effective, it's happening in the background, it's the biggest lever you can pull. You've pulled it, so you're going to forget about it and then just live life as carbon rich as you can.
I think not. You know, I've described giving money to Comic Relief in Red Nose Day as the sort of gateway drug that once you've got an investment, now you've given your five pounds to do something, the next time you're asked your opinion, you'll say, well, I'm part of that. So you know, if you do the pension and then as we are doing this year, you raise the issue of banks, you know, and is your bank doing the right thing, you'll think about banking. So I think people
get a sense of their consumer power. So I think it's a journey that once you realize that you've done a powerful thing. You're much more likely to do more powerful things than to say I've just done that one thing and now I can let it be.
If you were to go back to making films, Oscar Boyd, the producer of Zero, has a few ideas for you.
Oh thank god.
You know, instead of love, actually you could make pensions. Actually, yes, instead of notting Hill, you could make no oil spills. And the best is, instead of four weddings in a funeral, you can make your pension is your funeral.
Wow, Honestly he's tough. I mean, I don't think any of those movies are going to make any money, but I'm very proud to be credited with title inspired by That could be my credit on those films.
How the energy transition is financed remains an unsolved puzzle. The lack of progress often comes up annual climate summits. Pensions are a huge source of private capital that, if channeled in the right direction, could help shift significant sums of money toward vital clean energy projects. However, pension providers must be held accountable to make sure that money does what's promised. Thanks for listening to Zero, and a special
thank you to everyone who filled out our survey. Each week, Bloombergreen publishes hundreds of stories about the climate crisis and its solutions, including a recent investigation into efforts to preserve Gabon's pristine forests by Natasha White.
Recently, I traveled to Gabon in Central Africa with my colleague Anthony squasines investigate the country's efforts to raise money for protecting its forests. We traveled from the capital, Libreville to the southernmost province and for as far as the eye can see for three hours straight. During our flight, it was an expanse of massive, unbroken forests, the most
trees I've ever seen. These trees are critical in the global fight against clim change and are also home to a wide variety of species, but in current markets they're worth more dead than they are alive. Gabon hopes that by selling carbon credits it can get the money it needs to protect its trees while generating revenue and jobs for its people. Critics say that in Gabon, forest protection is happening anyway, and credits generator from those trees wouldn't
have any additional climate benefits. As we found out, these tensions are creating real challenges for the country and its business partners as they navigate the highly contentious carbon credit market.
To read Natasha's article and see the amazing aerial photos of Gabon's for us, we've put a link in the show notes. If you enjoyed this week's episode, share it with a friend or someone who gets too many ads about investing. Get in touch at zero port at Bloomberg dot Net. Zero's producer is Oscar Boyd and senior producer is Christine driscoll. Our theme music is by Wonderly Special thanks this week to Alistair Marsh and Kira bindram i'm Akshatrati back next week.